.PatAndre

gallery

What a grand sight. My heart starts thumping to feel and hear the pounding of all these hooves on the pavement. Six horse hitches are sometimes seen pulling stagecoaches in Westerns but usually it's a four horse hitch. An 8 horse hitch is really rare. If you know an 8 horse hitch is going to be somewhere, RUN to go see it. A little bit about the teams in an 8 horse hitch. The team hitched directly to the wagon is called the wheel team. These horses are usually the largest since they do most of the pulling and the backing of the wagon. The team in front of the wheel team is called the swing team. The team in front of the swing horses are called the point team and then out in front is the lead team. The lead team usually consists of the smaller and faster horses as they must travel a greater distance when the hitch is making a turn. So, from the wagon going forward you have the wheel team, swing team, point team and out front the lead team. There's your 8 horse hitch. It's a long way from the driver to the lead team. Here is some homework: it should be obvious how the wagon is moved forward, it's pulled forward by those long leather traces running from the horse's collar to the wagon tongue. But, how in the word is the wagon stopped or backed up? Leather traces are no good for that. Yes, the wagon has brakes but that's not the answer we are looking for. Yesterday's post "Here Come The Clydesdales" shows you the answer if you know where to look for it.